When I saw these photographs of Victorian women in their voluminous skirts and dresses, I wondered what I could say that hasn’t already been said by the usual suspects in historical books or feminists texts about patriarchy and fashion, etcetera, etcetera. I really don’t want to go down that path, but if you do there are plenty of sites out there that will supply the goods.

Honestly, my first thought when I saw these pictures was: “How the hell did these women go about their daily lives dressed like this?” It couldn’t have been easy. It couldn’t have been very practical or even remotely comfortable. But then, most fashion isn’t meant to comfortable—it’s about performance, it’s about dressing up to present a show. Victorian fashion was all about presentation—like the whalebone corsets worn to keep the female figure constrained, narrow-waisted, and artificially slim. Seems perverse to us today, but so might breast implants appear one day to our progeny’s progeny.

Fashion changed rapidly during the 19th-century with radical developments in industrialization, mass production, new techniques in printing patterns and colors, and the rise of the department store. At the start of the century, dresses were straight up-and-down maxi-lengthened Jane Austen-type garments made of linen and silk. By the 1820s, there was a flaring out of the hem and a widening of the hips to give women a more voluptuous and feminine shape.

This style of dress developed quite dramatically in the 1830s when such dresses ballooned out from the waist like a bell or a parachute, while the upper half of the body remained slim and pinched at the waist. Their bell-like shape was solely dependent on the hidden supporting structure of a bustle or crinoline cage suspended from the wearer’s waist. These “cages” were originally made of whalebone but were soon superseded by lighter more sturdy yet flexible “steel-hooped cage crinoline” in 1856.

Such hoop dresses or skirts were worn by all class of women. But it should be noted, these garments were often very hazardous as many working-class women lost their lives after their skirts were caught in machinery while many middle-class women perished after their dresses caught fire.

Rich women would have had a whole closet filled with various beautifully designed outfits. Lower class women usually had just the one outfit, which they kept fashionable by changing collars and cuffs or adding ribbons or a new layer of material.

Ultimately, the whole ensemble presented the image each of these women either wanted to or felt obliged to present.
 

 

 
More Victorian women in big-ass skirts, after the jump…

 
Tales of headless ghosts or headless horsemen that haunted the night—most famously described in Washington Irving’s short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”—and the horrors of the guillotine were a source of inspiration for these gruesomely comic portraits from the 1800s to early 1900s. These portraits show a flipside to the orthodox notions of Victorians as no nonsense, straight-backed, straight-laced individuals, who would no more crack a smile than waste a nickel.

It also shows how keenly many Victorians (or at least those who were rich enough to have their portraits taken) were to embrace the advances in (novelty) photography—a practice that is still continued today by “paranormal street photographer” Krocky Meshkin and Edward Allan of the site Haunted Memories, who famously produced the “Buckley Family Portrait,” which proves we moderns can be just as gullible when it comes to headless hoaxes.
 

 

 

 

 
More headless portraits, after the jump…
 

 
You will need your 3-D specs to get the most out of these titillating Victorian era entertainments, which offered both the gentleman and the lady users the illicit thrill of espying an intimate boudoir moment between some delightful uninhibited beauties. Such a stereoscopic vision was an aid to the imagination—inspiring a riot of Bacchanalian fancies over the kind of shenanigans young ladies in the first blush of womanhood could get up to behind closed doors.

As we can see, such shenanigans were really quite innocent—mainly talking, gossiping, singing, dancing, drinking—a typical a night out today. Yet, these photos are far more romantic, delightful and playful than all the gigabytes of exposed flesh available today at just a click away.

Of course, as the century moved on the imagery did become more explicit—especially the “dirty postcards” we Europeans enjoyed. Such saucy images go back to earliest times, but apparently the first record of “obscene pictures” was in 1755, with the publication in England of the book The Pleasures of Love: Containing a Variety of Entertaining Particulars and Curiosities in the Cabinet of Venus, which contained sixteen highly explicit woodcuts for the gentleman’s entertainment. 

Erotic magazines soon followed with the first Covent Garden Magazine, or Amorous Repository, “calculated solely for the entertainment of the polite world,” being published in England in 1774. There then followed a slew of such top shelf lad’s mags with ever increasing titles: the Rambler’s Magazine, or the Annals of Gallantry, Glee, Pleasure and the Bon Ton; “calculated for the entertainment of the polite world; and to furnish the man of pleasure with a most delicious banquet of amorous, Bacchanalian, whimsical, humorous, theatrical and polite entertainment” appeared in 1783; and in 1795 came the granddaddy of all magazine titles the Ranger’s magazine, or the Man of Fashion’s Companion; “being the whim of the month and general assemblage of love, gallantry, wit, pleasure, harmony, mirth, glee and fancy. Containing a monthly list of the Covent Garden Cyprians; or a man of pleasure’s vade mecum. The annals of gallantry, Essence of trials for adultery. Crim. Con. Seduction. Double entendres. Choice anecdotes. Warm narratives, Curious fragments. Animating histories of Tête-à-têtes, and wanton frolicks. To which is added the fashionable chit-chat and scandal of the month, from the Pharaoh Table to the Fan warehouse.”

These magazines certainly told you what was inside, and are far more entertaining than our modern one-word mags like Playboy or Hustler and alike. Also, note the wording—the use of terms such as “gallantry” and “harmony” and “love,” hardly the kind of sentiments to be associated with say… Shaven Ravens.

Understandably, such gentlemen’s magazines were expensive and were mainly focussed on erotic stories with some handy illustrations. Of particular interest to readers was the reports of “Criminal Conversation”—details of adultery trials, which soon became a source of erotic entertainment for the working class and the “meat and potatoes” to many a tabloid newspaper.

When photography took off in the late 1800s, the “doyen of Victorian pornography” was Henry Hayler, who began producing his own nude photographs from life. Hayler’s work became so popular that he started selling his rude nudes worldwide—a prototype of Hugh Hefner or Larry Flynt, perhaps. However, his homegrown industry wasn’t to last, as the police raided Hayler’s studio in March 1874 and impounded more than 5,000 plates and 130,248 erotic photographs. Hayler and his family fled to Berlin, but had they ever appeared in court they could scarcely plead not guilty as a considerable number of the photos contained Hayler, his wife and two sons engaged in incriminating activities.
 

 

 


 

 
More stereoscopic Victorian voyeurism images, after the jump….

 
Pope Leo XIII’s longevity as Pontiff of the Catholic Church (the third longest in church history) may have been down to his favourite tipple Vin Mariani. Pope Leo was so enamoured by this French tonic wine it is claimed he kept a hip flask hidden under his cassock, so he could enjoy the occasional snifter to perk up his spirits—which it undoubtedly did, as Vin Mariani was a heady mix of Bordeaux wine and coca leaves. The original drink had 6mg of cocaine per fluid ounce, which went up to 7.2mg per fluid ounce for the export market—mainly to compete with similar coke-filled tonics—such as Coca-Cola—sold in the USA.

It was claimed that Mariani wine could quickly restore “health, strength, energy and vitality,” and hastened convalescence (“especially after influenza”). In one of their ads, His Holiness the Spokesmodel decreed:

...that he has fully appreciated the benefit of this Tonic Wine, and has forwarded to Mr. Mariani as a token of his gratitude a gold medal bearing his august effigy.

Talk about a celebrity endorsement, eh? If God’s representative on Earth approved of the coca-infused tipple, that would have been quite a boon in marketing terms.
 

 

 

 

 
Cocaine enhanced drinks were common in the late 1800s, and there is an academic paper to be written on the influence of cocaine and the rise of the British Empire—how else to explain the sound of grinding teeth among all those overworked lower classes whose labor put the Great into Britain?

But it wasn’t just adults who benefited from the restorative powers of cocaine, it was added to pastilles for teething children, throat lozenges for flu and colds, and as a cure for hay fever.
 

 

 

 

 

 
After the jump, heroin for kids and more…

 
Lest we inaccurately dismiss the Victorians as naught but stuffy prudes, it behooves us to remember that whacked-out senses of humor are not a recent innovation. I’m used to seeing photography of this time period as a wall of stoney faces, but these headless jokers mug with the best of ‘em! The photos were created using double-negatives, save for one which looks like a shitty X-Acto knife cut-and-paste—get it together, Thaddeus!
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

 
Norman Bates would be proud - the Potter’s Museum of Curiosities, in Bramber, Sussex, where stuffed animals were dressed in costumes and posed in recognizably human settings - at school, sharing a tea party, drinking in a bar. Established in Victorian England, the museum was the idea of Walter Potter, an amateur taxidermist, whose anthropomorphic dioramas were considered typical of Victorian whimsy, and proved so popular with the public during the 1800s that the platform at Bramber railway station had to be extended to accommodate the extra carriages, which brought crowds of day-trippers to see the exhibits.

Born in 1835, Potter’s first attempt at taxidermy was his pet canary. At the age of 19, inspired by a book of nursery poems, Potter created The Death and Burial of Cock Robin, a diorama consisting of 98 species of British birds, which would become the centerpiece of his museum.

The museum had over 10,000 stuffed animals and included tableaux of:

“...a rats’ den being raided by the local police rats ... [a] village school ... featuring 48 little rabbits busy writing on tiny slates, while the Kittens’ Tea Party displayed feline etiquette and a game of croquet. A guinea pigs’ cricket match was in progress, and 20 kittens attended a wedding, wearing little morning suits or brocade dresses, with a feline vicar in white surplice. The kittens even wear frilly knickers under their formal attire!”

The museum closed in the 1970s, relocated and briefly re-opened at the Jamaica Inn, Bodmin Moor, in 1984, where it attracted over 30,000 visitors a year. Then in 2003, the exhibits were put up for auction. The artist Damien Hirst offered to buy the complete collection for £1million, but auctioneers Bonhams sold each piece individually, raising only £500,000. Amongst the buyers were Pop Artist Peter Blake, photographer David Bailey, and comedian Harry Hill. At the time, Hirst wrote in the Guardian:

“Mr Potter’s Museum of Curiosities at Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor is a fantastic Victorian-Edwardian collection of stuffed animals and curios. There are hundreds of items, all collected or devised by the original Mr Potter, who was a self-taught taxidermist. You can see he knew very little about anatomy and musculature, because some of the taxidermy is terrible - there’s a kingfisher that looks nothing like a kingfisher. But there’s some great stuff in there, too - two-headed goats, a rhino’s head, a mummified human hand. As an ensemble, it’s just mad.

“My own favourites are these tableaux: there’s a kittens’ wedding party, with all these kittens dressed up in costumes, even wearing jewellery. The kittens don’t look much like kittens, but that’s not the point. There’s a rats’ drinking party, too - which puts a different construction on Wind in the Willows. And a group of hamsters playing cricket.

“I’ve offered £1m and to pay for the cost of the auctioneer’s catalogue – just for them to take it off the market and keep the collection intact – but apparently, the auction has to go ahead. It is a tragedy.”

Last year, a one-off exhibition was co-curated by Peter Blake, who brought Potter’s curios together at the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, London.

It should be noted that Potter’s museum claimed all “animals died of natural causes.”

The following film was produced by British Pathe in 1965, and describes Potter as “a genius who made fur-lined dolls into whimsical but veritable works of poetic art.” A fabulous selection of photographs from Blake’s Museum of Everything, taken by Marc Hill, can be found on the Daily Telegraph website.
 

 
With thanks to Steve Duffy